The Orange Space Ninjas
by claraoswalds
Summary: Life at Hogwarts is rarely uneventful, especially for Ally Dawson, given that she's best friends with Austin Moon. But let's be honest - she never actually expected to help him start a band. Especially not one with such a stupid name. - slight Harry Potter crossover - AustinAlly


**disclaimer: **i don't own austin and ally or harry potter.

**note:** this is, obviously, a crossover. i did the math, and if the a&a gang are 15-ish now, they'd be in fifth year, while teddy lupin would be in fourth year and victoire weasley in second year. so, that's where things stand in the harry potter world.

**dedicated to:** drishti (skandar-loves-redvines), because it's her birthday (soon) :) HAPPY BIRTHDAY, DRI.

* * *

Ally Dawson is, in order of importance, a witch, a songwriter, and Austin Moon's potions partner.

She likes pickles and peach iced tea, but she does not, under any circumstances, appreciate smelling like pumpkins for an entire afternoon. She enjoys sitting in her favorite courtyard in Hogwarts, good books, and her best friends, but even her friendship with Austin rarely stops her from being annoyed when he blows up their cauldron.

_Again_.

"Mr. Moon, it is only three weeks into the school year. For the love of all things good and magical, _please_ stop blowing up cauldrons," sighs Professor Aquina, a normally sweet-tempered Croatian witch who has had to put up with Austin in her classroom for five years. Ally has never pitied anyone more, except perhaps herself for always being stuck with him.

"I swear," she mutters as soon as Professor Aquina walks away, starting to clean up the mess Austin's latest explosion has caused. "you are a walking, talking, cauldron bomb."

"What's a cauldron bomb?" Austin asks cheerfully, drawing his wand to mop up the sizzling green liquid splattered all over the floor as chatter picked up around them from the other students, all of whom had been stunned into silence by the explosion.

Ally shoots him a Look. Over five years, she has more or less perfected this Look, and she likes to aim it at Austin whenever he starts being particularly silly. "What do you _think_? And how many times have I told you to _check with me_ before you add _anything_ into the cauldron?"

"How often have I blown up a cauldron?" he asks in reply absentmindedly, kneeling down to play around with the liquid he has yet to clean up.

"Oh, only about seventy times over five years," she says, rolling her eyes. "_What_ are you doing down there?"

Austin blinks up at her, a childlike grin crossing his face. "It starts bubbling when you touch it!" he announces brightly. "Look!" To prove his point, he dabs his finger in the green liquid and waits for bubbles to spurt up around his hand.

Ally sighs, but she's unable to stop a smile from appearing on her lips. For all his faults, especially in Potions-brewing, Austin is still her best friend, and she can never stay mad at him for long.

"Get up, you weirdo," she orders, biting her lip to stop a giggle, and he obeys happily, jumping to his feet to help her clean up the rest of the mess. It's kind of a nice routine, she muses as they work, even if they do both get a detention out of it.

-:-

"We should make a band," he informs her as they sit in detention, unsupervised thanks to some second-years causing trouble out in the hallway, and write lines about how not to explode cauldrons.

Ally looks at her neatly-written cursive blankly for a second, then up at him. "Excuse me?" she asks, wondering if she'd heard him right. Had he said – ?

"A band," he confirms her thoughts, dotting an i on his parchment with a flourish. "You know, because I play the guitar and sing, and you write songs. We could be a team!"

"Austin…" Ally tilts her head, smothering a smile. "That's…not really how bands work. You'd need more people."

"Oh," Austin says, sounding put-out as he slumps back in his chair. Then he brightens up and turns to face her again. "We can ask Dez! He plays the tambourine!"

"I…" Ally blinks, unsure of what to say to that. "Um, okay."

"Really?" Austin's eyes light up. "You'll do it."

Ally laughs and flicks some ink at his face. "We'll see," she promises. "If you can figure out a way to make it work."

Austin rubs the ink off his face and sticks his tongue out at her. "I will! Just wait!"

-:-

Two days later, she's sitting in her favorite courtyard, the one with a pretty dolphin fountain in the center, reading a book underneath the shade of an apple tree, when Austin catapults into the courtyard, shouting her name.

"What?" she demands, caught off-guard by the sudden disturbance of her quiet reading time.

Austin pauses to get his breath back and then straightens to beam at her. "Dez agreed! He says he'll play the tambourine, and we even got Trish to do marketing."

"Marketing?" Ally inquires blankly, trying to figure out what her Slytherin friend had to do with _marketing_. Did Trish even know what that meant?

"Yeah, like, getting the word out to make students interested and stuff," Austin grins, practically bouncing up and down with enthusiasm. "And you'll write songs, won't you?"

"Uh…sure?" she asks, still trying to keep up with his boundless energy. "I – I'll get right to work on something once I've finished my homework," she tells him, mostly so that he'll stop giving her puppy dog eyes.

"You're the best!" he cheers and dashes forward to envelop her in a hug. He smells of mint and raspberries, Ally notices, and his hugs are really quite nice.

-:-

Their first rehearsal, if you can call it that, is a success. Sort of. Well, Dez only accidentally broke a window in the abandoned classroom they were using _once_, which Ally figures is a new record.

"Not bad," remarks Trish once Austin's finished his runthrough of her latest song, _Without You_, complete with headbanging and Dez's unusally loud tambourine. "I can think of a couple of people around the school who'd be interested in that kind of music."

"Only a couple?" Austin asks, looking crestfallen. Ally catches Trish's eyes and gestures wildly to tell her to not squash his hope.

"More like a lot," Trish amends quickly, plastering a smile on her face. Five years of friendship with Austin and Dez had taught her and Ally how to deal with the boys. "I'll get word out, don't worry!"

Ally sighs in relief as Austin brightens up again. She finds it funny how she's grown up with him since he was a hyperactive eleven-year-old on the train, and he's still hyperactive and excitable and hasn't changed much, except for suddenly becoming ridiculously good-looking, not that she'd ever admit that and – wait, where was she?

"Guys, don't we need a name?" Dez pipes up, bouncing back into the conversation – literally, Ally notes with less surprise than she used to have, he jumps from his previous position to stand right in the center of their little circle. "I think," he continues proudly, "we should be…The Orange Space Ninjas!"

Austin, Ally, and Trish stare at him.

"Why orange?"

"Why space?"

"Why ninjas?"

Dez makes a face at the three of them. "Because haven't you seen that new movie that came out this summer – Attack of the Orange Space Ninjas?"

"No," chorus all three at the same time.

"Was that actually in theatres?" Trish demands, crossing her arms and staring at Dez like he's a Rubix cube she has yet to complete.

"Of course it was!" Dez insists. "You guys just watch stupid movies."

Ally sighs. "I'm sure that's it. But, Dez, why would we want to take our name from a muggle movie? Most of the students won't even recognize the name."

"Wait, that's brilliant!" Austin interrupts before Dez can reply. "That way, the purebloods and half-bloods will think we're super cool, and the muggleborns who are in on the joke can laugh about it with us. Dez, you're a genius!"

Dez tosses his hair and grins. "I know," he agrees.

"But…why would we want to be known as the Orange Space Ninjas?" Ally asks them in her trademark what-the-heck-are-you-saying tone of voice, exchanging a dubious glance with Trish.

"Why _wouldn't_ we wanna be known as the Orange Space Ninjas?" Dez retorts. "Besides, I have orange hair, and Austin and me are the only ones actually performing, so we get to pick the name."

Ally blinks at him. "Austin and I," she says.

"You're not in the band!"

"Orange Space Ninjas, it is!" Austin announces cheerfully, and Trish smacks her forehead.

-:-

"That was totally awesome!" declares Austin, hyped from the adrenaline of their first Hogsmeade concert, which had been attended mostly by their friends and random stragglers who had been enticed by the noise.

"You were great," Ally tells him, finally stepping out from the cover of the tree she'd been hiding under because the stage, even if it was a makeshift one built on leaves, was just not the place for her.

"Thanks," Austin grins, gathering her up for a hug. "Do you think people liked it?"

"Are you kidding?" Trish materializes at their side with a wide grin on her face. "Everyone loved it! They're all going around talking about how awesome it was!'

"That's amazing!" Ally laughs as Austin starts doing a victory dance. Dez quickly hops down from the stage and joins him, and the people remaining from the crowd start cheering them on.

After a minute of watching their ridiculous dance moves, a group of second-year girls appear in front of them, all four of them giggling.

"What'd you guys think of the concert?" Ally asks them warmly, recognizing two of them from Ravenclaw – Victoire Weasley and Anna Aronette. The other two are from Gryffindor, if she's not mistaken.

"It was awesome!" gushes Anna, looking at Austin and Dez with wide eyes. "You guys were so good!"

"I loved it," Victoire beams, her smile trained on Austin, who suddenly looks a little dazed. Ally frowns. Maybe those rumors of Victoire being part-Veela were true after all.

"Will you go out with me?" blurts out one of the Gryffindor girls, jumping forward and flashing Austin a toothy grin.

Ally and Trish exchange startled glances as Austin stammers out, "Uh – I don't really…I mean – you're twelve!"

"Actually, I'm thirteen," the girl corrects, her smile never leaving her face. "We can have our first date right now!"

"Um…" Austin looks over her head and mouths, 'Help!' at Trish and Ally. Trish helps in her own Trish way by shoving Ally forward.

"He can't," Ally says quickly at Trish's wild hand gestures. "He's, um…taken?" she offers weakly, glancing sidelong at Austin who shrugs.

"By who? You?" sneers the girl as her friends look on in concern. Ally thinks she ought to be offended, but there's no time because suddenly Austin is wrapping his arm around her shoulders and smiling cheerfully at the second-years.

"Yeah, actually," he tells her without missing a beat. "We are. Sorry. See ya!"

Without waiting for a response, he wheels Ally around and the two of them, joined by Dez and Trish, walk away from the gaggle of second years as fast as they can.

"Boy, that was a close one," Austin sighs once they're out of earshot, but he still doesn't let his arm drop. Ally decides not to mention it.

"How come the girls are only after you?" Dez complains, tossing his tambourine in the air.

Trish rolls her eyes and sends Ally a smirk before grabbing Dez's arm and dragging him away. "C'mon, we'll go find you a girlfriend. Preferably one who doesn't drive me up a wall."

Ally's not sure there's a single girl in Hogsmeade who fits that criteria, but she waves goodbye with a smile anyway. And then Austin speaks.

"Thanks for saving me back there," he tells sincerely, smiling down at her. "I owe you one."

"Uh," Ally says, laughing nervously. "It was…mostly Trish."

"Nah, it was you," he insists. "Let me buy you ice cream?"

She's about to refuse, except it's free ice cream. "Sure," she grins. "And, um, you do realize half the school thinks we're dating by now."

Austin looks over at her, his eyes bright with a smile. "You're right. Want to make it official?"

"Wh—what?" she stutters, not sure what he's saying or why there's butterflies inside her all of a sudden.

Austin laughs. "Ally Dawson, will you go out with me?"

"I…" Ally pauses to take a deep breath, then smiles. "I'd love to."

-:-

The Orange Space Ninjas become a huge success in Hogwarts. And, as a general rule, girls don't try to ask Austin out anymore.

Ally's rather happy with that.

* * *

**a/n:** if you're wondering why this sucks, it's because i started writing it at 3 am a couple nights ago. sorry. but if on the off-chance you did actually enjoy it, please leave me a review to let me know what you thought!

and **DON'T** favorite without reviewing, please and thank you.


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